


From the ghost-hills of your fathers

by blackkat



Series: SkyFett drabbles [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attraction, Fix-It of Sorts, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27684941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: “Leia, it’s fine,” a man says, and it’s not quite soothing. More entreating, and Boba wrinkles his nose, shifting slightly.His hands are cuffed behind him, and one of his captors was smart enough to steal the lockpicks from his belt. Boba hates smart enemies.“It’snotfine,” the woman says acidly. “Luke, he tried tokillus!”“Only once,” Luke says stubbornly. “And technically he was taking Han alive.”
Relationships: Boba Fett/Luke Skywalker
Series: SkyFett drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024501
Comments: 44
Kudos: 919
Collections: Jedi Journals, Luke Skywalker Rarepairs, Star Wars Alternate Universes





	From the ghost-hills of your fathers

“I can't _believe_ you want to take _him_ back with us!”

Boba's head is ringing, and that voice is _not_ helping. He grimaces, head foggy as he stirs, and he can't quite remember the last thing that happened. A bounty on Alaspin, but he cashed it in and left, and then—

“Leia, it’s fine,” a man says, and it’s not quite soothing. More entreating, and Boba wrinkles his nose, shifting slightly.

His hands are cuffed behind him, and one of his captors was smart enough to steal the lockpicks from his belt. Boba hates smart enemies.

“It’s _not_ fine,” the woman says acidly. “Luke, he tried to _kill_ us!”

“Only once,” Luke says stubbornly. “And technically he was taking Han alive.” There's a rustle, then quiet steps, lighter than most of the mercenaries Boba works with, and a moment later a shadow falls over Boba.

“The hands were Leia's idea,” Luke says, and Boba finally places the voice. Heard threatening Jabba, last, and that means—

He opens his eyes, and Luke Skywalker gives him a small smile, crouched over him in one of the rattiest, most beat-up cargo holds Boba has ever seen. Solo’s ship, Boba assumes, and flexes his wrists in the cuffs.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to strip a Mandalorian of their armor?” he rasps.

“No,” Luke says, and it’s so honest it _hurts_. Hard to believe this is the man Darth Vader is so set on capturing that he took all of Cloud City hostage to do it.

Disgusted, Boba grunts, rolling halfway over on the hard floor to narrow his eyes at Luke. “If you're looking to ransom me back to Vader—”

Those oddly bright blue eyes darken faintly. “No,” Luke says. “I don’t think he’d pay anything for you even if we tried.”

The _we_ makes Boba tense a little, and he flicks a glance towards the doorway of the hold, where a shape in oversized clothes is standing, very clearly clutching a blaster. Jabba’s pet princess scowls at him, very definitely a threat, and she looks a lot more comfortable with a weapon in her hand than she did dressed as a dancer. If he does try something, it’s sure as hell going to be something careful, because she looks like she knows what to do with that thing.

And, to add to that, Boba can see the lightsaber clipped to Luke's belt, all too obvious when Boba knows what he’s looking at.

Boba had thought he’d left Jedi back in the Clone Wars, back with the Republic. Vader's a Sith, and doesn’t count, and there are few enough Force-users left that Boba can pretend they're all gone, baring the occasional bounty on one he picks up. His life’s been a hell of a lot easier that way, right up until he decided to take the Solo bounty and almost got _eaten_.

Kriff, it’s been a bad day.

Vader's definitely not going to cough up any credits to buy Boba back, especially from the Rebellion. Boba lets out a heavy breath, dropping his head back against the metal decking, and pulls a face. He’s been stripped down to his undersuit, and it’s _cold_. His head hurts, his ankle’s twisted, and there's a bruise between his shoulder blades where Solo, blind and flailing haplessly, _accidentally_ knocked him into the sarlacc pit. He should probably be glad that most of the people who witnessed that are likely dead; otherwise, he’d have to hunt them down himself to make sure they took the story to their graves.

“I don’t suppose you got my credits from Jabba before you escaped,” he says, a little sourly, because with the way this day has been going—

Mirth brightens Luke's face, washes into something _sharp_. “Before we killed him, you mean?” he asks, and there's a sharp scoff from the doorway.

“What’s this _we_?” the princess asks grouchily from the doorway, folding her arms over her chest. Her grip stays firm on the blaster, though, and her narrowed eyes stay on Boba.

“I distracted the guards,” Luke protests. “Otherwise you would have been shot before you could strangle him.”

Kriff. Boba looks from one to the other, and—a former farm-boy and an Alderaanian princess aren’t supposed to be some of the most dangerous enemies the Empire has, but that’s how this is playing out, apparently. Jabba was _old_. There have been millions of people who dreamed of escaping him, or killing him, and these two just walked right into his palace and did it despite the odds.

“You were _decently_ helpful,” Leia says crossly. “And then you went and ruined it by saving _him_.”

“I had a feeling,” Luke answers, and his gaze flickers back to Boba. It’s—startling. Maybe hard to look away, but Boba doesn’t remember any Jedi ever looking quite like this. Like there's something _other_ behind the blue of his eyes, a weight to his words that shouldn’t be there when he’s just a desert rat with a plasma sword.

Skywalker, Boba thinks, and—it’s a hell of a big galaxy, with plenty of Humans in it. There are always going to be plenty of unrelated people sharing names, but…

“A _feeling_ ,” Leia says, in about the same tone that that statement probably deserves. “Well, your _feeling_ means that we have a dangerous bounty hunter tied up in the hold and nothing to do with him. We should just space him.”

“You're charming,” Boba tells her flatly, and eyes Luke. “What kind of feeling?”

Luke considers him for another moment, then smiles. “That it would be wrong to let you die,” he says. “Even if Vader doesn’t want you back, I think you're worth more alive than dead.”

Boba's been a bounty hunter practically since he was born. Jango made sure of that. Worth is something other people assign to bounties, not to _him_. He eyes Luke for a moment, wary, and then says, “So you're not spacing me.”

“Of course not,” Luke says, over Leia's loud scoff. When she turns on her heel and stalks away, he laughs a little, settling down beside Boba with his legs crossed under him. Boba calculates how he could grab that lightsaber, or maybe the knife he can see in the top of Luke's boot, but—

He saw what Luke did in Jabba’s palace. No waving hands like the Jedi he saw used to use, no apparent strain. Just words, and it was like Bib Fortuna was his best friend and ally.

Not exactly a Jedi, Boba thinks. Not that that’s surprising, given how few of them are left. It makes Luke an unknown, though, and that’s dangerous.

“So what?” Boba asks, pointedly twisting around so he can at least try to sit up. “You think that just because you managed to grab me, I'm going to join your little Rebellion?”

Luke rolls his eyes, which Boba does not appreciate at _all_. “I'm from Tatooine, I don’t expect anything from bounty hunters except a lot of collateral damage. But you _do_ owe me your life.”

Boba grimaces, dropping his head back against the wall with a thump. That’s true. The sarlacc might not have killed him, but—the odds were definitely against him. And Boba doesn’t respect a hell of a lot, but he’s never forgotten Hondo Ohnaka’s words about his father, how even a Weequay pirate thought Jango Fett was an honorable man. Boba hasn’t exactly tried to live up to that, over the years, but even now it’s still _there_.

“Only because you're an idiot,” he says, but Luke just snorts, leaning back on his hands. He’s still wearing his gloves, still dressed in all-black, and Boba thinks of the Jedi. Thinks of Mace Windu, and then of Aurra Sing and all the bounty hunters he’s known who would laugh in Luke's face for saying something like that.

Boba's always thought that he was better than them, personally as well as professionally. Maybe this is the moment where he has to prove it.

“And what exactly do you want in return?” he asks, lifting his head to give Luke a scowl.

Luke grins at him, easy, free. It makes something Boba would really rather ignore twist in his stomach, and Luke isn't _that_ pretty, but his hair is the color of sand and his face is mobile and hard to look away from. The edge of something _other_ in his eyes doesn’t exactly take anything away from it, either.

“Just for you to stick around,” Luke says. “For a year, maybe. You don’t have to get involved if you don’t want to, but—just _see_.” His smile fades a little, settles into something a little sharper, a little more determined. “We’re going to bring the Empire down. Do you really want to be on the other side of that?”

Boba's spent the last decade thinking of the Rebellion as a dumping ground for idiots, doomed to fail. He’s seen firsthand what Vader can do, after all, and all the things he’s _willing_ to do. But—

Something coils up his spine with tiny claws, a prickling awareness like standing in front of an oncoming lightning storm. Boba looks at Luke with that weight behind his gaze, thinks of the princess with her blaster strangling Jabba with his own chain, and for the first time, he almost thinks that they might pull it off.

It’s not a certainty. It’s not even any statistical probability. But there's just enough doubt in Boba's mind to make not going back to the Empire the mercenary choice here. He’s not _joining_ the Rebellion, and he can hold back, keep out of things. But having an in with the side that might pull off an upset, on the off chance that everything aligns, isn't a terrible idea.

“Untie me,” he says. “and get me something to eat, and _then_ we can talk.”

From the brightness of Luke's grin, though, he knows very well that he’s won. Smug shouldn’t be a good look on anyone, but Boba still feels that tug deep in the pit of his stomach. Jabba’s hangers-on included some pretty dancers, eager and more than happy to make Boba a notch in their bedposts, but Boba's mouth still feels a little dry thinking of the way Luke moved on the barge. It’s been a long time since he saw anyone even close to a Jedi fight, and—he’d forgotten.

“Get that look off your face, _Jedi_ ,” he warns, disgusted with himself and Luke's face in equal measure. “We haven’t settled anything yet.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke says, infuriatingly easygoing, and uncoils in a single movement, rising to his feet. “I wouldn’t try to get out of those ropes. Leia's still behind the door, and I think she wants to shoot you.”

There’s a sound of indignation from the hall, and Boba casts a wary look at the entrance to the hold. “Food,” he says again, though. “And some bacta while you're at it.”

“What, for your pride?” Luke asks, grinning, but he’s gone before Boba can do more than growl in annoyance.

Karking hells. He _hates_ Jedi.

Boba thumps his head back hard against the wall a few times and calls himself a fool in every language that he knows.


End file.
